


Measured in Friends, not Miles

by bessemerprocess



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Dark, Gen, On the Run, Ori
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-12
Updated: 2006-12-12
Packaged: 2017-10-07 15:08:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/66332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bessemerprocess/pseuds/bessemerprocess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There were forty three charcoal marks on the wall, but Vala gave up counting the days at least a month ago.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Measured in Friends, not Miles

**Author's Note:**

> written for eve11 for an unknown challenge

There were forty three charcoal marks on the wall, but Vala gave up counting the days at least a month ago. Instead, she sprawled on her stomach in what Daniel had labeled the throne room. To Vala's eyes there wasn't enough gold, nor focus on the central seat for this to be the throne room, but she said nothing. These days silence seemed to be the strongest bond between them.

He had given her a notebook, with a yellow plastic cover and told her of Herodotus and Tacitus and all the other historians. After about the fifth gate, she took him at his word and began recording their story. At first she wrote about being a host and then being freed, of working at the SCG and of Earth. As they ran, she wrote about the Ori and her daughter. She stopped writing the same day she stopped marking the days on the mosaic behind Daniel's throne. Almost a week went by before she picked up her pen again. Now she wrote of their journey to this place, a place Daniel called Kailem Asheur.

The world was uninhabited now, just green rolling hills, and sky bluer than even those on Earth. Daniel said it reminded him of some place else, and Vala was just sick of running, so they stayed in the ruins of a thousand year old palace. Some parts were less damaged then the others, covered in mosaics of bulls and lions and dancing women. Daniel had found some gold plates in the kitchens to go with the silver spoons and fork laid out on the still set table. They'd found a bedroom with a mattress that hadn't quite fallen apart, and stolen the remains of others to pile on top of it, along with pieces of blankets that had once been embroidered with gold thread.

It wasn't the life lived by the people who had abandoned this place thousands of years ago, but it was better than running. Vala had though it would be a nice place to stay and Daniel couldn't have run much longer. When they decided to stay, he had wanted to bury the gate, but Vala convinced him to leave it for a few days, in case they needed to leave in a hurry. Later, when he told her he was never going to leave this planet, Daniel asked her to bury the gate. She packed a lunch and had walked the three miles to the gate and had a lovely picnic lunch. When he asked how it went, she told him that she had accomplished the task. By that point he was too fatigued to look for himself.

Vala thought she should have asked Daniel how many gates there had been before this, she no longer remembered. Perhaps twelve, maybe thirteen, mostly uninhabited, all places none of them had stepped foot on before. The running hadn't been that bad; Daniel had stocked up on MREs before they had ran through the gate at the Alpha site. It was the lack of information that was getting to her. Had there been a miracle? Had someone managed to stop the Ori, stop the Ascended beings that Daniel had once lived with? She still did not know.

Sam had died on the Alpha site and Vala had replaced the bunny slippers she had run through the gate in with Sam's boots. They didn't quite fit right, but no one wanted to be chased across the galaxy wearing slippers. Daniel had picked Sam up afterward, and tucked her into a bunk, as if she were only sleeping. He had left something in her hand, Vala had not seen what, and then turned, and left. They had all left, her and Daniel and Cameron and their own personal plague.

Cameron hadn't lasted long. He'd died two gates later, on the planet where they had stolen the dilapidated al'kesh. Daniel had carried his body too. Had laid him out in the al'kesh as if he were one of Ra's loyal guards. Though, Vala felt that had been unintentional. They took the al'kesh and Cameron's body through the gate chain that McKay and Sam had set up. Daniel had seem surprise to see it still working, and had insisted on off-loading Cam onto the mid point station. It had never been finished; Earth had been too busy with the Ori.

Daniel had shown her a book once, back on Earth. It had pictures of an old King's tomb filled with gold, silver, precious jewels, art work, even furniture. A tomb befitting a god, a Goa'uld. At the time, she had suggested that they acquire some of the pieces for themselves, but Daniel had just given her the book and then taken her out for ice cream. It was a shame that ice cream seemed to be limited to Earth, rainbow sherbet would be a welcome reminder of the place she had come to think of as home right now.

Perhaps it had been Teal'c's death under the mob's feet that had driven Daniel to insist on proper resting places for his teammates. They had been unable to recover Teal'c's remains, though he had saved them all. Even worse for Daniel, she though, they never heard from Jack. So Daniel, in his way, had buried them with Sam and Cam, far away from the place of their births. And when it was his time, she would bury him in this way, also.

But she couldn't bring herself to do it immediately, so instead she wrote his history, the works of his people, his team, and when it came time, she left her notebook on the throne, and curled next to his body on the bed that they had made together. The quick stroke of Cameron's knife was all that was needed to stop Daniel's seizures. She left the knife with him, placed carefully under his crossed arms, as she had seen in his books.

Vala gathered the last of the supplies and set out for the gate. She punched in a address Adria had supplied her with months ago in case she ever changed her mind. She stepped through the swirling wormhole, finally content to bring this plague to the rest of the universe.


End file.
